The Embedded Software Center in the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering
and Computer Science is an industrial/academic collaborative center for
advanced research to dramatically increase the productivity and quality
of complex embedded applications.

The center is developing sophisticated tools and techniques for integrating
reliable embedded software systems from third party components. The goal
is to increase productivity by compressing time-consuming steps in the
software development process. Eventually, this will enable domain experts
to rapidly assemble an application from existing components using small
amounts of in-house software to interface with third party components.
The center is also investigating advanced tools to enhance the reliability,
security, adaptability, and performance of embedded applications.

To achieve this vision, the center is developing a COTS aware requirements
engineering methodology to adapt product concepts in order to maximize the
use of existing components and preempt quality problems. A web-based
component management system is being developed to automatically track
software components, facilitate component customization, and automatically
synthesize glue code and design templates. A design methodology is
being investigated to provide significant reliability and customizability
gains through decomposition of complex monolithic systems into parts that
can be independently implemented, validated, and customized. The center
is developing tools to support the methodology, including specialized
reliability and security enhancement tools and a framework for adapting
the system to changes in the environment without sacrificing performance.

The research is being evaluated using prototype development with periodic
demonstration projects to assess the technology and measure the
productivity and quality gains. The center is working with its industrial
partners, currently Alcatel USA and Texas Instruments, for technology
transfer and more in-depth demonstration projects.